The West African Elders Fo­rum is a platform of eminent personalities, including former heads of states and govern­ment, who provide mediation and interlocutory roles in addressing elections and demo­cratic conflicts in West Africa.

• Dr George Akufo Dampare (third from right) with members of the taskforce and other dignitaries

Speaking at a meeting with the delegation at the Po­lice Headquarters in Accra yesterday, the chairman of the Taskforce and Inspector General of Police, Dr George Akufo Dampare, said the secu­rity agencies, based on previous elections, had instituted elec­tion security measures into its mainstream security measure.

This, he noted, made the security agencies in the country adequately prepared for the upcoming general elections in terms of security management and control.

Dr Dampare said that al­though there had been pockets of electoral violence during elections in the country, the re­cent peaceful district assembly elections, bye elections, and in­ternal party elections held was a testament to the improvement of security management by se­curity services during elections.

He also acknowledged the support of the Electoral Com­mission (EC), the various polit­ical parties, and the citizenry in assisting the security agencies in the promotion of security during elections, and further called for more collaboration between various stakeholders.

For his part, Mr Jonathan explained that the success of any peaceful election depended on the role of two key institu­tions, which were the election management body (EC) and the security agencies.

“For a successful election, all the citizens are involved. How­ever, there are two institutions that are critical to make that happen. They are the electoral management body like the EC and the security agencies,” Mr Jonathan said.

According to him, the con­fidence of the citizenry in the two institutions was key, and therefore urged the EC and security agencies to ensure that adequate security and electoral processing measures were put in place in order not to lose the trust and confidence the citizenry had in them.

Mr Jonathan further com­mended Ghana for conducting peaceful elections since it be­came a Republic and urged the country to uphold its demo­cratic principles of governance.

The presence of the West African Elders Forum, Mr Jonathan said, was not only to be an observer but preventive diplomacy to ensure that the December 7 elections was peaceful, as any form of con­flict that may arise could have an impact on other Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) countries.

With the composition of the taskforce, Mr Jonathan said the delegation of the West African Elders Forum was confident of the security services delivering before, during, and after the general elections